25 Redditors On The Creepiest Event They’ve Lived Through

1. Get in the Van

When I was maybe 19 or 20 I nearly got run off the road on my way home from work one night. No actual accident, but it shook me up so I pulled off on the shoulder to calm down before continuing to drive.

A windowless van pulled up behind me and a man got out, and approached my car. He asked if I was okay, and I told him I was fine, just gathering myself after a scare. He offered for me to wait in the van with his ‘wife and kids’. He insisted multiple times that I get in his van. Luckily my door was already locked and I had only cracked the window to speak with him.

Since he parked his van right behind me and I could see in my rear view there were no visible passengers in his van.

Sithasaurus

2. Try Another Apartment

One night of college, I heard a woman screaming for help. I looked out my window and saw her right next to the street. Keep in mind this is a popular college town and the street was busy and there didn’t seem to be anything immediately attacking or endangering her. After a few minutes I was about to go down when a car pulled up and three guys got out. I could overhear the convo since it was right out of my bedroom but she said no one was paying attention and they should “try” some other apartment. They all jumped in and drove off.

A month later an apartment got broken into and four people were caught, 1 women and three men. Apparently she was in the house and left the door unlocked and the men then came in and robbed the place.

ZeusAlmighty1

3. Tragic Evening

I was once at my girlfriend’s townhouse and they had a backyard with a shared fence with a family (or group of families). It was dark night, but one of those nights when the light of the town reflects off of the clouds so it’s eerily light out. The fence between the townhome and the family house was old and worn out so you could see through the gaps if you really focused. We heard a blood curdling scream “NOOOO!” Followed by an immediate soul crushing inhale. There was probably 50 feet between the glass sliding door we were at and the fence. They had their flood lights on, and it illuminated the silhouettes of the parents crying. Peering through the fence 50 feet away you could see a body swaying from the tree. Their son had hung himself and discovered it in the dead of night when their dog ran out to the backyard and activated the flood lights. We could only see through the small gaps in the fence and the shadows of the family experiencing it in realtime.

Still gives me chills every time I think about it.

jango-witha-j

4. What If

This was seventh or eighth grade. School just got out and it was raining. Hard. I walked over to a church parking lot adjacent to the school where my mom usually picked me up. There were several other people that picked up from there, but my mom’s car wasn’t in the usual spot, so I stood in place and texted her to see where she was. Some guy grabs my attention by asking if I’d like to get into his van to get out of the rain. Never seen the guy, no kids in the van. I obviously declined and said I was okay. He asked again and I said no, walking away at which then my mom texted me telling me where she was.

I probably should have done something, but my mom’s car was pretty far away from his and he could’ve already left. I don’t know if anything would have actually happened, but you don’t ask some kid you don’t know to hop in the front seat of your van.

At that point I lived in a safe area. No kids were reported missing so obviously nobody fell for it. The school he was waiting outside of was a 7th-12th grade charter.

It wasn’t that horrifying, just really unnerving and I used to think about the what ifs because I didn’t alert somebody that this guy was being weird.

StillExpectations

5. Live Wire

I’ve seen a lot since I used to live in a bad part of town, but the one that really stood out was when one of the wiremen was literally burnt into a crisp.

We were at the church next door which was at the 2nd floor and had a big window, from the back you could see the wireman doing something, but then suddenly he grabbed hold on a live wire, he tensed up started shaking and he couldn’t let go, people tried getting him down using wooden sticks but it only caused him to fall down still clinging on the live wire, I didn’t see anything else after him falling down but our neighbors said his clothes were burnt off and he was literally charred and unrecognizable.

FaoLOr64

6. Childhood Trauma

My dad used to wake me up in the middle of the night to confront me about the things I didn’t do correctly or didn’t fulfill to completion. And when that happened… well it didn’t help my dad has anger issues. Once or twice he’d threaten and actually try to push me out of my third story bedroom window and strangled me to the point where I blacked out. Not dead, I think he knew when to stop. It became a regular enough occurrence where I would wake up of my own accord when he would usually wake me up and I would be unable to fall back asleep. So I would lay there, heart pounding, anxiety going through the roof near tears anticipating…

When I got to high school I started fighting back, yelling back at him, pushing him backward when he dared come closer. It did cause him to get more violent at first, like when I was pushed off the banister of the staircase of the third floor. But that was the same night was when I held up a clothes hanger and threatened to whip him back if he dared lay a hand on me. That same week I went to the school. They called the police which was more than what I wanted them to do and I was furious at that teacher. But looking back, I thank that teacher with my whole heart.

weizer123

7. Being Followed

I was driving home from Target at around 8PM at night and got the feeling the car behind me was following me. I started taking a very weird, circuitous way and they stayed behind me…not tailgating, but close enough to not lose me. Finally, they turned and I breathed a sigh of relief…

…until I turned on a side street, saw an idling car with its lights off, and the HEADLIGHTS CAME ON and they started following me again. I was freaking out and drove as fast as I safely could to the small-town police station. When they saw me turn into the parking lot, they sped off. I sat there until my adrenaline calmed down a bit, and then I drove home and promptly burst into tears. Closest I’ve ever come to living out a horror movie.

BarracudaImpossible4

8. Fire!

When I was 19 I was 7 months pregnant with my oldest daughter. I still lived with my parents and came home after work around 1130pm. I usually checked that the vehicles were locked before going inside. But this night I was overcome with a sense of immense fear. I wouldn’t even look towards my parents vehicles and hurried into the house. Twenty minutes later a guy is knocking on our door telling us that my parents SUV was on fire and to get out of the house, saving our lives and we called 911. There was a serial arsonist on the loose in our town and when he was caught and he confessed he admitted to watching me come home that night and how he was preparing to hurt me in case I had caught him but I never looked over his direction as he was sitting in my parents SUV when I had arrived home. It took years before I was able to be out at night alone.

An_allergic_reaction

9. Fear of Water

When I was about 6,, my parents dropped me off at this swimming lesson class. now this was back in China over 2 decades ago, I remember that class had a lot of students. anyways I was scared of the water and didn’t want to go in and the teacher got frustrated and just tossed me in the deep end. to this day I remember clearly the panic I felt, the sheer fear as I choked and gaged on the pool water as I sunk lower and lower. it felt like ages before the teacher shoved a long pole into the pool for me to grab onto to pull me out. I remember the sensation of panic and edges of my vision getting dark.

For several years after I was so terrified of water going over my face that I had trouble showering and washing my hair. I had to force myself to take a deep breath, go under the water and scrub as fast as I can and step out. every time my heart rate would go crazy and I would be on the edge of a panic attack.

Anyways it wasn’t till I was in my mid 20s that this even came up during a family visit and my grandmother told me that when grandpa found out, he got so mad he called in favors from his army buddies (literally old revolutionary soldiers from Maos days) to go in there with high ranking government officials to scare the fuck out of that swimming school/teacher.

Illidariislove

10. Kidnapped by an Ex

I was kidnapped by an ex.

Well I say kidnapped, it all started with severe blackmail, death threats, having people watch my house, telling me when my family were home etc.

Then he kidnapped me and kept me locked in a hotel room for 3 days. I was beaten, raped, abused, tortured. He was threatening to sell me to a Bulgarian biker gang where I was to be turned basically into their heroin junkie. He had arranged for me to be collected from the hotel the next morning. Luckily my family had reported me missing and in the early hours the police managed to find me. I saw my once chance of escape and took it. Thankfully now he is serving 23 years.

I definitely learnt a lot about myself in those 3 days.

RosieBloom87

11. Shot Through the Door

It’s more creepy than horrifying. This was right after the mass Las Vegas shooting. I was at my sister’s keeping her company (her husband was out of town) and we had her two young children. We were talking about the shooting and how probably a lot of people don’t run away at the start of a mass shooting b/c gunfire in real life doesn’t sound like it does on TV. At that very moment, we heard this BANG BANG BANG and I thought it was someone trying to kick in her door. We took the kids to the bedroom and hit the panic button on her security system. It wasn’t someone trying to kick in the door. Someone had shot through her front door.

Kikabennet

12. Squatters or Haunted?

The campus house that I lived in had a pretty fucked up history. Suicides took place there, previous owners died and it was old as hell. I stayed there all summer alone because of my job in my college’s city and legit every night I’d hear shit. Before I’d chalk it up to one of my 4 other roommates making noise but now I was alone.

I pretty much heard weird shit almost every night. The first day I got there, I went upstairs to my room and the second I reached the top of the stairs I heard a door slam downstairs. Throughout the summer I heard footsteps, doors, and a bunch of other shit. I was almost sure(still think this today) that there was a squatter who somehow avoided me all Summer.

There were days when the front door would be unlocked in the morning where I vividly remember locking it at night. I’d say to myself “okay here I am locking the door” and give it a few tugs to make sure it was locked and it’d be opened come morning. Maintenance usually let themselves in periodically but I’d call them up and they’d say they hadn’t been there.

The creepiest one was the door that led up to the attic. It was a regular door not one of those pull down ones. Some days it’d be slightly opened and I’d pull on it closed but it wouldn’t open by itself. I’d close it, put a chair in front of it but it’d still be sliiiiightly opened. My roommate came down one weekend that I happened to be gone and he said he heard a lot of banging as well throughout the night.

One day I straight up yelled “IF THERE’S ANYONE SQUATTING HERE I LITERALLY DO NOT CARE AND YOU CAN STAY BUT LET ME KNOW YOU’RE HERE AND WE CAN SET UP SOME SIMPLE GROUND RULES I’M CHILL.” I thought I heard some rustling from the basement but nothing ever happened. Funny part is, if there was a squatter, I wouldn’t have cared too much. It’s the college’s house so if someone wanted to be my roommate for the summer I would have been totally okay with it as long as they weren’t a psycho.

RealECW

13. Life Changing Accident

In 2016 I laid my motorcycle down going about 45mph. When I knew I was going to wreck, I had just enough time to realize that this was not going to be good. Everything went black and I ‘came too’ standing in the middle of the road watching the crash. I watched my body flop across the pavement and didn’t really care.

Everything was more ‘real’ than I’ve ever known. The colors were brighter and just more, the birds chirped in the most beautiful way you could imagine. Everything was super focused excepty body and bike, they looked different somehow. I don’t know how to describe it.

I noticed a male presence (that I never saw) silently pushed me and I was back in my body. I sat up in the ditch, wiped the blood from my eyes and slowly got up and started walking for help. (I was by myself, couldn’t lift my bike, and hadn’t told anyone where I was going.)

I made a lot of mistakes that day, going alone without having my license, taking back roads I wasn’t familiar with, not wearing gear, not wearing a helmet, etc. I was dumb but that experience changed my life.

Pyroclasmic88

14. Fallen From Fifth Story Window

I was out to eat with my family, and my dad, who is usually super calm, while about to eat a Cubano sandwich he always orders at our spot, yells “holy SHIT!” and turned white. I asked what happened, and he stammered that some guy just fell. I turn around and there is a man on the pavement motionless. Without thinking, I darted out of the restaurant and crossed the street without even looking to try and help him. I am lucky I didn’t get hit by car doing so. Well, it was too late. He was dead. Blood was absolutely pouring out of his mouth, head, nose. I shouted at him to try to get him to respond and he laid motionless. I then turned my back on him and called 911. Someone must have already called, or by chance, a fire truck was nearby. They rushed over, but it was too late. Threw immediately threw a white sheet over him. A week later, a detective called me. They ruled out suicide, so, it may have been an accident, or a homicide. He had fallen from the 5th floor around dinner time. I saw his face for weeks randomly. I still have no idea what happened. Haven’t been back to that restaurant since. The fucked up thing, was his blood strain was on the pavement for months after, faintly there, people walked right past it likely unknowing. The red tape that clung to the pole remained barely attached, weathering away. No one ever put flowers out for this guy. I wonder if he could hear me, screaming at him, or if he was already dead.

ttmoodaat

15. Bad Fish

A few years back, I ate really old fish. It was herring in vinegar so the fact that it was long gone wasn’t as obvious. It didn’t quite taste right but my mom kept saying it’s fine and that I should just eat it. So I did.

Several hours later my head gets a little dizzy and I need to lie down. I sleep through the night, wake up up the next morning still not feeling good. Now I’m starting to feel really sick and don’t eat or drink anything. But I push through the day, thinking I’ll get better with rest. I wake up the next morning, throwing up, world is spinning as if I just drank 2 bottles of vodka. Mom takes me to the hospital but it takes a long time. I have severe food poisoning and am dehydrated. I haven’t had any water in over 30 hours. I can’t stop throwing up and am just leaning out the car window to do that as we drive to a hospital. My hands and legs start cramping up, I can’t even use my neck muscles to support my head any more, it’s just hanging loose out the window. I can barely talk I’ve never been so sick in my entire life and at that point I realized… I’m going to die.

It was such an odd feeling. My brain went: “Okay, this is it. This is how it ends.” I fully believed I am dying that day and there’s nothing that can be done any more. The scariest part was that rather than being scared, I took it as a relief. I knew this suffering was coming to an end and it made me calm. I was very accepting of it. Which is what scares me the most today. To just come to terms with it and not try to save myself any more

Spoiler alert: I survived Mom drove me to the hospital, where I got an IV to rehydrate. I spent the next 4 days throwing up constantly. Then slowly started being able to walk around again for a few minutes a day. I was released a week later, but I was dizzy for around 2 more weeks afterwards. Would stumble when walking, especially when getting out of the shower with wet hair, the extra weight of the water was making me lose my balance and I’d fall down because of it sometimes.

YoMomIsANiceLady

16. Escaped Patient

When I was around 13 I had a tendency to stay up late and try to beat my current n64 game of choice over a weekend. One night I had decided to move my stuff to the living room, now keep in mind our house had a hallway connected to the bedrooms but the hallway had a door for some reason, so after moving everything to the living room I closed the door for the hallway to not wake up anyone, about two hours into my gaming session I started hearing tapping noises, so I paused my game and the noises stopped, then for ten minutes it got louder yet this time coming from the sliding glass door in the den. At this point I ran to get my dad,he ran out of his room and went out back only to see someone jump the fence.

Turned out that a local mental hospital had a escape early that evening according to the police who arrived, what was more creepy was the glass on the window was very close to breaking . I never once played video games in the living room again and now I suffer from night terrors and a severe fear of looking out Windows or doors at night.

spicypanda66

17. Nighttime Terror

A few years ago I was sleeping then all of a sudden I wake up, then start hearing sounds in my room. It’s kinda hard to explain but something like the sound of your furniture when you put something on it? Or like the sound it makes during an earthquake? Like that. In this case, I was hearing it all around my room, like there was something jumping across everywhere. I was terrified lol I was aware some shit was happening but I was too scared to peek around (at this point I was hiding under my blanket).

Eventually the sounds stopped and I gained enough courage to stick out my arm and reach my phone which was on my nightstand. I turn it on and notice it’s… steamed?? Like, it had condensation all over the screen. Nothing else seemed out of place after that, and I had a really hard time going to sleep again that night.

Edit: some mistakes.

Edit 2: It was definitely not sleep paralysis since I could move normally, just that I was stiff from the terror alone. Now that I think about it, there’s a possiblity it could have been an animal, like a rat, running across the roof, though I don’t know how to explain why it sounded like it was inside my room, and what made my phone get like that.

Anal_Milk_Popsicle

18. Man in the Park

When I was about 9 years old, I went to the park near my house with my older sister (17) and her boyfriend (18 or 19). My sister and her boyfriend were walking around the track while I played on the playground there. It was early evening/dusk so I was the only one on the playground. After 10 minutes or so a middle aged man walked up and started talking to me. Can’t remember the exact things he was saying and asking me, but I do remember him slowly getting closer and closer to me. I was on a platform with one of those bridges connected to it and he was on the ground at the other end of the bridge at first and slowly made it to the platform. My sister and her boyfriend came into view on the track about the time I started getting nervous and he asked if it was my parents. (They were still a little ways away so I doubt he could tell how young they were) I said no that it was my sister and her boyfriend and he hurriedly said goodbye and left. I can’t say for sure that anything would have happened had they not came around then but I’m sure glad that they did.

mynameizbrian

19. Threatened With a Knife

When I was a kid, I was at a friend’s house and we were hanging out in her parents bedroom (they weren’t home). She had some gum, so I asked if I could have a stick. She left the room and came back with a large kitchen knife, got on top of me, held it to my throat and threatened to kill me.

I don’t remember exactly what happened aside from these details, but I wasn’t harmed.

Latter_Dare

20. The Love Was Gone

A few years ago I had a relationship with a girl who literally went from waking up in the morning and just sitting in her bed in tears of joy because she was convinced I was her soulmate, planning her future with me, meeting my parents and having her think she was lovely, to essentially just waking up one day and losing all feelings practically overnight. No explanation or even any desire to explore why, and I got the impression she didn’t even understand why herself. Just an incredibly haunting moment of acceptance, like she just “knew” and had to go with it.

The fact that this is even possible within the human condition honestly terrifies me. She was so completely convinced we were meant to be, too. She was always looking ahead towards our future together, right down to details like how she wanted to have a pet fish when we moved in together one day. Then just… nothing.

flameylamey

21. This One Time at Summer Camp

One night when I was 10 we were at an away camp. The campsite had other groups there, but we had separate cabins for boys and girls where we were staying (obviously).

One night me and the other boys decided to sneak over to the girls cabin and bang on their windows to scare them.

We waited will probably midnight, then sneaked on over making sure to not wake up counselors.

We rounded the last corner of the cabin and standing at the window peaking in was a man in a white shirt, probably 30s.

We were absolutely terrified it was a ghost or something so we bolted terrified back to our cabins (we’d been telling our own scary stories).

We never got caught leaving, and we never told our counselors because we thought we’d get in trouble for sneaking out. No clue what the guy was doing or would have done if we didn’t happen upon him by chance.

Bbiron01

22. Chainsaw Ahead

I was out at a pretty secluded lookout near my town you need to drive through some forest and some dirt roads In the hills to get to it. So I’m sitting there with a friend just taking in the view and this car comes flying down and blocks us in with spot lights turned on and someone gets out and starts coming towards us with a fucking chainsaw. Noped the fuck out of there. Started my car and just hit the gas managed to get out of there, they gave chase and stopped once I got to the main highway.

suicide_nashline

23. Teenage Horror

I started dating a 16 year old when I was 12 behind my parents back. He was almost 7 foot and over 200 pounds. When I was 13 they started leaving me alone when they had things to do. My dad owned all the neighboring houses and knew all our neighbors well so I was pretty safe. Sitting on my couch at 12am one night when no one was home I see him staring through my window. He forced himself in and proceeded to choke me till I was blue, and beat me for many hours. I never told him my parents were gone so he had to have been watching my house. My papaw was dying of cancer at the time and my cousin was also diagnosed with cancer the same week he was. The bf told me it was my fault they were dying. At one point he tried to rip my pants off after throwing me on the bed, but I held on tight enough that he ripped the legs off and gave up. We ended up in the second floor and I kicked a window out and tried to run but he grabbed me. I noticed his mom kept calling him and saw her car in the woods near my house. She had drove him there and was calling because she wanted to go home. I finally convinced him we would go to her car and tell her he was staying the night, he told me not to “try any funny shit”. As soon as we got out the door adrenaline kicked in and I ran as fast as I could to her car and tried to jump in. She slammed the door and I heard the car lock. I remember looking at her as he dragged me back into my house by my hair. I went through the beating for another hour before he finally was done and left. I spent the rest of the night watching YouTube on how to cover bruises with makeup and pulling glass out my feet from running. What scares me most is that a woman would lock the door on a child like that.

Successful-Aioli3585

24. Almost Kidnapped

I was nearly kidnapped as a child. I remember walking to the supermarket at night when I was around 11 years old (I know I had questionable parents) when a van stopped next to me. There was no one but me there on the street and it was really dark. The person in the car asked me for directions but I kept my distance when I told him the way. He said it’s very urgent and asked me to come closer because he couldn’t hear me properly. When I walked towards the van the door behind the drivers seat suddenly opened and a hand grabbed after me. I was scared and immediately started running into the opposite direction. The van then drove away and I never saw them again ever since.

Ok-Addition-5791

25. Stalked by a Big Cat

Being hunted/stalked by a panther for about 2 miles. When I was in high school I went out hunting after school and stayed out a bit too late where the sun was dipping below the trees and getting dark in the pines. Started making my way back to the house walking up a trail and kept thinking a heard something behind me and had this feeling I was being watched. Sure as shit I finally turn my spotlight on and look behind me and I see this face with two huge yellow glowing eyes poking out of the brush about 50 yards behind me. I start walking again checking behind me constantly and occasionally caught it moving bush to bush following me. Everyone says I’m crazy because there are no “panthers” in Texas but I know what I saw a black cat about the size of a cougar following me.

abspencer22